Rat and Lambo 24-Hour Adventure

We’ve never been Lamborghini fanboys. Didn’t have the Countach poster in the ’80s, and thought a Superleggera was just an Isky camshaft. Non parliamo Italiano. The double-throwdown new Lamborghini Aventador only hit our consciousness over the last few months as we’ve become involved in the Motor Trend world, producing video shows for that YouTube channel. We couldn’t help but notice that anybody who points a camera at an Aventador racks up a million-plus views. This had us curious, so we decided to have a look at the Lambo through the eyes of a couple of trailer-park gearheads oblivious to the lore. The company was surprisingly willing to throw us the $8,380 it took to rent and insure the junk for one day for a video production. Downside: We weren’t allowed to wreck the tires or so much as splatter a gnat on the paint. Our solution was to use the supercar-like a couple teenagers cruising LA and attracting as much attention as possible.

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That’s the point, isn’t it? Something tells us that virtually none of the Lambos sold will ever see track time. Guys spend the $387,000—make that $425,000 with tax in Los Angeles, then add the gas-guzzler tax and destination fees—to posture.

Thus, we put the Aventador up against some stiff competition in the peacocking department, going for the ludicrous juxtaposition of a supercar versus a pure rat rod.

Baller

The car we paid $5.82 a minute to rent was a ’12 Aventador LP700-4, which has a lot of interesting tech stuff—most of all, the naturally aspirated, DOHC, 8,500-rpm, 6.5L, 396ci, 60-degree V12 that makes 700 hp. It’s rated at 11/17 mpg, should you care—though if you own this thing, you probably also own the oil company. The screamer is attached to a seven-speed transaxle with a robotically activated single-disc clutch that functions automatically at the whim of your commands from the paddles behind the steering wheel. Power is broadcast to all four wheels.

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The Aventador features monocoque construction with a carbon-fiber body and aluminum front and rear frame structures, yet it manages to weigh nearly 3,500 pounds, probably due to all the luxury amenities like air conditioning, a supercomputer for an audio/nav system, and other stuff like, say, a passenger seat and windows that go up and down. The suspension has pushrod-activated coilovers, and the brakes are carbon-fiber units with rotors of 14 3⁄4 and 15 inches behind 19x9 and 20x12 wheels.

It’s hard to avoid being wowed.

Deathtrap

Our rat rod was a ’30 or ’31 Ford Model A Tudor that HOT ROD overhauled for Sailor Jerry rum as a promotional tool. The car was already built when we bought it, but we sent it to Mackey’s Hot Rods (Mackeys­HotRods.com) in Huntington Beach, California, to take some of the rat out of the rod (by fixing the nightmare suspension). Still, it’s all that you’d expect a severely chopped and channeled rod to be. Like, powered by a mystery small-block Chevy and a TH350 that takes its commands from a Lokar shifter topped with a beer-tap handle. The power is delivered to one rear wheel through an open differential. The chassis features stagecoach construction, with a suicide setup on the beam front axle and some coilovers on the ridiculously Z’d rectangular-tube frame out back. We don’t know what it weighs, but it’s completely stripped of all amenities—like, say, actual seats. The brakes are underwhelming vintage drums behind Coker wires and bias-ply rubber.

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It was hard to avoid being leery.

Freiburger

Our plan followed that of an average Saturday for me as a teen in the ’80s. We’d bounce off the beach in the morning before blasting to the desert for some high-speed hijinks, then grab midnight grub, carve corners on Mulholland Drive, carouse Hollywood Boulevard and the Sunset Strip, and call it a wrap after dicing it up on the local freeways.

I surprised Finnegan by grabbing the Sailor Jerry car for the first leg, figuring that if it were him instead of me who crashed the Lambo in LA traffic I could just fire him, thereby leaving my own career intact. That was before I realized I wasn’t going to survive the hot rod with my sacroiliac intact. The wickedly reworked sedan poses a severe sightline problem; you have to either look over the header panel or under it. I’ve had better views through a keyhole. I assumed a completely prone posture, lying down half under the steering wheel, left foot up on the dash, throttling with the right heel. This thing is perfect for Verne Troyer.

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Thirteen feet into the trip, I high-centered the Model A on the driveway of the Lambo rental place. Inconspicuous. An hour later in Hermosa Beach, with all the beautiful people, it ran out of gas, and I coasted to a parking spot blessed moments before a black-and-white came sniffing after the sound of open headers. The long pause at the curb gave plenty of time for people watching, and those people fell into three categories: tragically self-absorbed yoga chicks who uncomfortably avoided the slightest glance at either car, normal folks who loved the rod, and silk-shirted gold-chainers who just wanted to know how much the Lambo cost.

Near the sand, we swapped rides. I have to admit I was sweating about driving a car that cost as much as my house; we had insurance, but no amount of mac-n-cheese meals would make up the difference for the $40,000 deductible. Only as I grabbed the handle of the Aventador did I realize that it has those stupid—wait for it—Lambo doors. You know, scissoring out and upward. The day the first mini-truck guy added those to a Nissan is the day the concept jumped the shark. From that moment, I couldn’t help but look at the supercar as a kit car. It may be carbon fiber, but it seems like Tupperware. Whining continues: In low-speed traffic, the automatic clutch shudders, and the trans short-shifts until it lugs the V12. Next thing you know, I’ll be whining about the cupholders. Which it doesn’t have.

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Attitude reset: View it like a hot rod. It even has a hot-rod electronic mode, though it’s called Corsa—like race course. I’d initially motored in the Strada (street) mode, and can enthusiastically suggest you never bother with that the next time you drive one of these. Strada shifts the trans automatically and weakly. The Sport mode has some merit, delaying shifts in automatic mode yet also allowing manual mode. The Corsa mode is all out.

Here’s where the Lambo entertains. The V12 shrieks to 8,500 rpm like it was meant to be there, and it sounds like nothing else on Earth. You want to cruise it in First always, just to listen to it. And with the all-wheel drive, the power is always ready to be applied directly to forward motion. You can’t do a burnout no matter how hard you try. Speaking of which, Thrust Mode is cool. Set the car on Corsa, switch off the traction control, and at a dead stop, mash the brake and floor the throttle. The V12 comes up to 5,500 rpm, then you lift off the brake and the electronic launch control takes over, with four meats clawing ahead.

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Now, call me jaded, but 700ish hp and 3,500-plus pounds make a car rather jaunty. Fast, even. A lot fast, in some situations. But not $425,000 fast. I’ve read a lot of reviews and seen a lot of videos with guys giggling like little girls at the punishing acceleration and violent shifting and so-called unrefined Lamborghini action. I think those guys test a lot of minivans. From a muscle car perspective, 700 hp is just starting to get your attention, and while the shifts are snappy, I think the problem is that the car is too refined to seem as fast as it really is. It runs 10.60s in the quarter, exactly the same as our Neanderthal Crusher Camaro. Yeah, 135 mph comes really quickly in the fantastic plastic—I just wish I were scared during the trip. It never felt like I was going to die or go to jail, and that’s part of the fun of a preposterous car.

The rat rod over-delivers on that score. It’s not at all fast, yet purely terrifying, illegal, and eye-catching. Open headers, no turn signals, a general hazard. None of that makes it more honorable than the Lamborghini, but I felt so much more like myself in the Model A. The driving experience was so much more interactive. And most of all, everyone notices the car and asks you about it. It’s almost like you’re an immediate cool guy when you crawl out of it, stinking like exhaust fumes. People want to be your friend. Get out of the Lambo and no one approaches you. The hot rod lives in the real world.

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In the end, the hot rod simply reaches more people, and as one onlooker quipped, “You can buy the Lambo. You have to build the hot rod.” But for me, honestly, I wouldn’t own either car. I’m into performance more than posing, and the rat rod doesn’t offer speed, braking, or handling in any way. The Aventador has all of the above, and while we gave it no chance to really carve corners, I’m sure that’s where the power, the all-wheel-drive, and the paddle shifting are utterly stunning, smearing any muscle car you could throw at it. But I don’t like the way I feel driving it. For the price, I could build a dozen-plus muscle cars I’d be happier with.

Finnegan

I looked at this as a way to see how the other half lives. Both other halves, actually, because I’d never driven a rat rod or a supercar and I nearly died in both of them. It’s a real miracle I didn’t go to the slammer, too.

I got in the Aventador first. The key to happiness was not worrying about the $425,000. It’s not like it was my $425,000. I rarely had it at less than WOT, and figured out the manual shifting in Corsa mode almost immediately. I left it there because nothing was more fun than the 7 to 2 downshift. The V12 sounds like sex. I used to be a V8 guy, but all of a sudden, I want lots of cylinders and four cams and lots of rpm. I don’t really need the rest of the Lamborghini attached, I just want the engine in a hot rod. I’ll drive the Lambo again any day you want to give me the $8,380. I’ll get over the fact that the only attention the car seems to draw around LA is from dudes. Doesn’t matter. I already have a wife and kid, and they’ll probaby have to bail me out of jail for driving too fast.

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The Model A was even more of a hazard to my driving record. The massive chop makes it a mess to drive. Seven different cops from five different agencies passed me, and I nearly ran over two of them because I couldn’t see when changing lanes. On Mulholland Drive I almost parked it on someone’s front lawn when it bottomed out on a massive pothole, bounced off the ground, and locked up the brakes. At least it looks stylish when you’re trying not to crash it.

I don’t care that’s it’s completely impractical, because that’s how a rod should be, but after a few hours on the highway, I felt like I’d been worked over during a night in County lockup. I’d take it to the store if I lived in a town where traffic didn’t resemble a parking lot, but that’s about it. For any haul farther than 100 miles, I’d gladly hop in the Lambo.

Does that mean I’m not a hot rodder?

The Shakedown

By Brandan Gillogly and Jesse Kiser

Weeks before Freiburger and Finnegan played around with the Sailor Jerry car and the Lambo, we hit the road for the car’s maiden voyage.

It was a solid plan: hop in a rusty, low-slung, radically chopped ’31 Model A Tudor with only a modicum of suspension travel, and drive it 300 miles from Orange County, California, to the 15th Annual Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender (VivaLasVegas.com). Oh, and the car had never before been on the highway. What could possibly go wrong?

We don’t want to sound too melodramatic, but the car in question has been called a deathtrap by one of the HOT ROD staffers. Possibly more than one. Consider that these are guys known to willingly accept a seat in an untested Ranchero bound for Alaska, and you begin to see how this car was perceived when it first arrived at our shop. Mackey’s Hot Rods (MackeysHotRods.com) in Huntington Beach, California, reengineered the suspension, chassis, brakes, and steering to make it a viable driver. Mackey’s didn’t touch the TH350 trans or the mystery small-block Chevy. As for the pair of freakish Canadian Military carburetors? Fear no evil. But don’t come near them with a tool.

Shop owner Brian Mackey led the way to Vegas in his own roadster that was also being christened on the open road. Marc Carson did most of the wheel time in the Sailor Jerry sedan. Our sister mag, HOT ROD Deluxe, was a Viva Las Vegas sponsor, so with plans of setting up the HRD booth on Friday and photographing the road trip without being rushed, the cars left Mackey’s on Thursday around 11 a.m. Rather than heading directly to the highway, some surface-street miles were added to ensure both cars were worthy before topping off the tanks for the highway. Fifty miles later at the first fuel stop, Brian checked the tire pressures, suspension-mounting points, and coolant levels. The sunflower-seed inventory, M&M’s reserves, and soda/ice ratio in the Big Gulps held out for the blast over the 3,777-foot-elevation Cajon Pass and to In-N-Out Burger in Hesperia. It seemed the rods would survive.

Adventuring began at an abandoned water park at Lake Dolores, just off Highway 15. After poking around the vandalized buildings and remnants of the water slides, Mark left the derelict amusement park with the sedan sideways in the dirt lot. It was glorious, it was spontaneous, and exactly the kind of fun the car was built for. Then, as the sun dropped in the high desert, Mackey drove away from the highway in search of a decent spot for one last photo and to pull the wheels and drums of the front of the sedan to check the brake backing plates. During the hour-long detour, the sun set and the temperature dropped. It was time for drivers and copilots to layer up for the trip’s finale.

Vegas came at about 9 p.m. Despite our trepidations, there was no drama on the trip, and we had grown to really appreciate the Sailor Jerry car as more than just a wild styling exercise. But not too much more. There aren’t many cars better suited for a cruise down Las Vegas Boulevard.